It can sometimes feel like healthy habits are the most difficult to keep up with at the end of a long day. The best way to live healthier throughout the entire day--and even into the evening--is by following an easy routine that fits with your schedule. One of the best places to start is with a clean air routine.
Taking a few moments to make sure the air around you is healthy can have a profound impact on your health. Breathing clean air has proven to improve concentration and productivity, help slow the process of skin aging, improve eczema and hives symptoms, alleviate allergies and asthma, and even improve your quality of sleep.
Unfortunately, we’re exposed to unhealthy air much more than we may realize–especially when we’re indoors. In fact, indoor air can be 5x more polluted than outside, due to everyday factors like paint, furniture, carpet, air fresheners, toys, and much more.
Don’t worry–it’s much easier to make sure the air around you (whether you’re at home or in your office) is healthy by adding a few small habits to your daily routine. To help you get organized, we’ll share our favorite tips for easily improving the air around you as you move throughout your day.
If you haven't already, we encourage you to read our Healthy Morning Routine and our Healthy Afternoon Routine to get a full picture of what it takes to live a day with clean air. If you've already committed to these healthy air routines, here are some quick tips to help you round off your day:
If you've been out working or running errands all day, it's possible your home has been sitting with the same air all day. "Stale" indoor air that hasn't been flushed out with a healthy flow of outdoor air can potentially have lingering fine dust, chemicals, and more. Try to open a few windows for a period of time before bed so you ensure you'll be sleeping in fresh air throughout the night.
The simple trick of sleeping with your bedroom door open can have a profound impact on your sleep quality. As we sleep, we exhale and fill the room with carbon dioxide. While carbon dioxide isn’t toxic in small quantities, too much carbon dioxide can have a negative impact on your sleep. Too much carbon dioxide can disrupt your REM cycles—the state of deep sleep—and can make it difficult to wake up, making you feel groggy.
One of the best ways to keep your overnight carbon dioxide levels low is by sleeping with your bedroom door open--this will allow for air to flow throughout your home as opposed to becoming stuck in one room. You can read our full experiment with sleeping with the door open here.
Have you ever found it impossible to fall asleep in a room that felt too hot? This wasn’t just because you were uncomfortable–it also has to do with your body.
When we’re trying to fall asleep, our brain will try to lower our overall body temperature, and this slight drop in temperature helps induce sleep. However, if the air in our room is too hot or too cold, we’ll have a difficult time achieving the right body temperature for a healthy night’s sleep, causing us to have a restless night.
Research tells us that the best room temperature for sleep is between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
Outdoor temperatures typically drop throughout the night, which can affect your temperature inside, as well. If you’re worried about the temperature in your bedroom overnight, setting a thermostat within the preferred range can help you have a better night’s sleep.
The best was to ensure you're truly creating a healthy environment in the evening is by understanding what's in your air with an air quality monitor, like Awair. Awair tracks toxins and chemicals in your air and gives you personalized recommendations to help you stay safe and healthy.
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